Page 84 of Light My Fire Three Times
But the way he’s looking at her, his cocky edge is slipping, replaced by something rawer.
Jesse steps closer, crowding her space. “You don’t need to know. Not right now. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.” His hand twitches at his side. It’s taking everything in him not to reach for her again.
Olivia’s eyes flick between them, between all of us, and her breath hitches. “But what if… I wanted… more?”
The room goes still.
My pulse pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat.
Karl lets out a low laugh, but it’s shaky, dark. “Then, sweetheart, you just made three men very, very dangerous.”
And fuck if the air doesn’t change right then.
The fight drains out of Jesse’s shoulders, replaced by something else. Hunger. His gaze drops to the strip of bare thigh showing beneath the towel, and he swears under his breath.
Olivia shifts, clutching the fabric tighter, but her knees press together. She’s trying to hold herself steady.
And me? I can’t look away. Every second of this is fire on my skin.
“I can’t believe we’re actually talking about this,” Jesse mutters.
Karl smirks. “Talking’s not the problem. Deciding who goes first might be.”
“Jeez, Karl,” Jesse growls, but his eyes are on Olivia again, not him.
Her voice trembles, but there’s a spark in it now. “Maybe… maybe this doesn’t have to be either or.”
And there it is.
The spark that ignites the powder keg.
Karl’s grin sharpens. Jesse goes still, his chest heaving. And me—I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t think.
Olivia’s knuckles loosen on the towel. She doesn’t even realize it’s slipping. The terrycloth slides a fraction lower, exposing the smooth line of her collarbone, the curve of her breast.
Jesse’s gaze follows it, like a starving man.
He swallows hard, then drags his eyes up to hers. “Liv…”
She whispers back, “Don’t tell me to stop.”
That’s all it takes.
He steps into her space, bracing one hand on the wall beside her head, the other sliding over the knot of the towel until it drops soundlessly to the floor.
She’s bare. Glorious. Trembling but unflinching.
“Fuck,” Jesse breathes, reverent and ruined at the same time.
His fingers trace her hip, her ribs, the underside of her breast.
Karl chuckles low, but there’s no humor in it now, just hunger. “Well, hell. Guess we’re really doing this.”
He moves in on her other side, his hand tangling in her damp hair, tilting her head back so she has to look up at him. He doesn’t kiss her. Not yet. He just hovers, lips a whisper away.
“Say the word, Liv. Tell us to back off, and we will. But if you don’t…”
Her breath shudders out, shaky but sure. “Don’t.”
